Dorien made a growling noise low in his throat, like a cornered lion preparing to lash out. That growl sank through my body, pooling between my legs, spreading warmth to dark and hidden places inside me.
“What are you smiling about?” he rasped.
I lifted a hand to touch my face. He was right – Iwassmiling. It had been so long since I had something to smile about that I forgot what it felt like.
“Nothing,” I said sweetly. “I’m just reading a really funny book.”
“‘Translations and Annotation of Choral Repertoire’ is a funny book?” Dorien narrowed his eyes at the title in my hand.
“Oh yes.” The heat in my body bubbled through my veins, turning to a giddy mirth that warmed my skin. “It’s fuckinghilarious.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Dorien
I slammed the door to my room so hard the wall shuddered. Faye’s gleeful face as she stood over my computer played over in my mind, imprinted on top of her vicious scowl as she smashed the doughnut into my face.
She did it.
Howshe did it wasn’t important, and the why was obvious. Revenge for the shit I’d put her through since she came to Manderley. She was working her way through all of us – first Ivan, then Titus, now me. She thought I had something to do with her mother’s assault.
What rattled my bones more than anything was what this meant.
She knows your secret.
I grabbed my phone off the bed, my fingers flying over the keys to text him, but I deleted all the words before I hit send. What could I say that would make a difference?
Calm down. Don’t lose your shit. She doesn’t know everything. She knows about the money… or lack thereof. But she can’t knowwhereit’s gone,orwhy.
She’ll figure it out. And you only have yourself to blame. You mentioned your brother. You poked the bear, and now the bear’s not going to rest until she’s clawed out your guts.
And this secret… it could cost the life of the one person in the world I cared about more than Faye.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” I grabbed a pillow off my bed. That was the annoying thing about being stuck at this school in the middle of nowhere. There was no one to punch. I could punch Titus, I supposed, but since he was lending me money and he was the size of a freight train, all that would achieve was breaking my knuckles.
Ivan? I could punch him. That would be kind of satisfying – I’d at least get a reaction out of him. But he’d punch me back, and Ivan might be small, but behind that icy facade lurked decades of repressed Romanian fury. I was quite fond of the shape of my nose as it was.
I’d happily punch Master Radcliffe until his face was a bloody pulp, but that would make things worse for Ivan and Elena, and I couldn’t do that.
With nowhere to direct my anger, I slammed my fist into the pillow. Feathers flew everywhere, blanketing my room in a soft, yellow snowstorm.
I flung the pillow away in disgust. It hit the photo frame on my bedside table, sending it flying. Glass shattered across the floor.
Faye. I bet she was loving this. Those red lips of hers had tugged back into a genuine smile because she bested me. I imagined those lips slipping around my cock, her tongue flicking over the tip as she took me deep. I moaned at the thought of surrendering to her.
With trembling fingers, I tapped a message into my phone on the Broken Muse private chat. We needed to sort this shit out, once and for all. We were dancing too close to the flames – one of us, or all of us, were going to get burned.
Chapter Forty-Three
Titus
I was chilling in the Blue Room, drinking wine and watching reality TV shows on Aroha’s laptop, when my phone vibrated.
“Ooooh, I’ll have some of that.” Aroha wriggled her ass in the chair, shooting me her wicked grin. Her pupils were wide, dilated.She’s on something. Shit.
We all knew Aroha had a crippling fear of performing, one she hid with cocaine and cigarettes and her fuck-off attitude. But we were just hanging out, no pretense, no performance, so why was she snorting now?
As if we didn’t have enough to worry about.I opened my mouth to ask her about it, but then my phone buzzed again.
